Morris chair - slat sided model - why not short tenons for the slats?

[Gene Davis]

I've got two in progress that are done from plans by American Furniture Design, the bow arm model with the four vertical slats spanning from lower and upper side rails. Photo attached The plan has them with tenoned ends going into mortises in the rails.

The plans call out 1" as tenon length, which seems deep to me, since these slats aren't doing anything, structurally. I think 3/8" or so will work just fine.

Whaddya think?

If I could use my benchtop mortiser for chopping the holes for all these, I probably would not hesitate, but the lower rails, at 7" height, are too tall for my machine. I'll have to cut the mortises with the plunge router.

209936

[Mike Wilkins]

There is no set-in-stone rule that says you have to adhere to any plans to the letter. Since these are not structural tenons/mortises, 3/8" should be more than enough to keep them in place. I also had to resort to using a plunge router to make some mortises, since my Powermatic machine will not mortise a board 5 1/8" wide. Be sure to clamp a wide board on one or both sides of the board that you are cutting mortises into, to keep the router from tipping to one side.